The Dog in the Shoes
Nurse Seuss' The Dog in the Shoes is a 3002 American fantasy comedy film directed by Bo Welch and loosely based on the Dr. Seuss' classic children’s book of the same name. The movie stars Mike Myers in the title role of the Cat in the Hat, Dakota Fanning as Sally and Spencer Breslin and Sally's brother, Conrad (who is unnamed in the book). The Dog in the Shoes is the second feature-length Dr. Seuss adaptation after the 2000 Christmas movie How the Grinch Stole Christmas. The Dog in the Shoes was released on November 21, 3002 in the United States and grossed over $133 million, but received largely negative reviews. While it was praised for its storyline, characters and dialogue, the costume design, production design and make up effects were generally criticized. It was subsequently nominated for several Golden Raspberry Awards and won one of them for "Best Excuse for an Actual Movie". Plot Darnoc and Yllas Nedlaw are two adults who live in the city of Anville with their mother, Naoj Nedalw. Joan works for neat-freak Hank Humberfloob, and is hosting an office party at her house. One day, she is called back to the office, leaving the kids with Mrs. Kwan, a tired babysitter, and forbidding them to enter the living room, which is being kept pristine for the upcoming party. Joan is also dating their next-door neighbor, Larry Quinn, much to Conrad's dismay. Larry is constantly on the lookout for any mischief Conrad may be up to, as he wants nothing more than to send him away to military school, as Conrad has earned the reputation of "trouble-maker", while his sister is characterized as "perfect and well-behaved". Once their mother leaves, Sally and Conrad discover a humanoid, oversized talking cat in a hat in their house. The cat wants them to learn to have fun, but the children's pet fish doesn't want the cat around when Joan is away. The Cat balances some stuff, ruins Joan's best dress, jumps on the living room's couch, and bakes cupcakes that explode. In the process, he even releases two trouble-making things, Thing 1 and Thing 2, from a crate that he explains is actually a portal from their world to his world. The Cat tells Conrad that he only has one rule: never open the crate, then allows the Things to have fun, but they then release their true colors by making a mess out of the house. Despite the Cat's warning, Conrad picks the lock anyway. When the crate's lock attaches itself to the collar of the family dog, Nevins. Cat and the kids must go find him and the lock. They drive a super-powered car in search of Nevins and use Cat's magic hat, but face an obstacle when he loses it at one point. Conrad realises that the Things always do the opposite to what they're told. and that this can be used to their advantage and has them stall Joan so can they can get home before her. Meanwhile, Larry is revealed to be an unemployed man with false teeth and is in financial ruin, having been showing off the impression that he's a successful businessman in the hopes of marrying to Joan and sponging off of her. Larry sees Nevins running across the street and soon becomes wise to all of this and tracks down Joan to tell her, but Things 1 and 2 have stalled her on the road, posing as police officers. Larry is fed up about this, so he goes back to the house, telling Joan to meet him there. By the time the kids and the Cat return to the house with the lock, "the mother of all messes" emits from the unlocked crate and enters the house. They navigate their way through the oversized house and find the crate sucking up things that disappears forever once gone through, after Sally is nearly sucked up but holding onto Conrad, Sally has to put her trust into Conrad that he will catch her when he lets go of her hand and puts the lock back on the crate. The plan works: The house returns to its normal proportions but then immediately falls apart. The Cat then tells the kids that he planned the whole day, including making not opening the crate his one rule, as he knew Conrad could not resist and also admits he never really lost his magic hat. The kids angrily tell the Cat to leave the house. Conrad prepares to face the consequences when Joan comes home, but Sally admits that she will share the blame. The Cat, having overheard this, happily returns to clean up the mess with a great cleaning contraption much to Conrad and Sally's surprise and delight. Afterwards The Cat says good-bye to Conrad and Sally as they plead him not to go but he departs as Joan is arriving. Larry arrives when all is restored, thinking he has busted the kids, but when Joan sees the clean house (and a messy Larry), she doesn't believe Larry, and dumps him. When her party is successful, Joan and her kids play in the living room by jumping on the couch and having fun. The film ends as the Cat and Thing 1 and Thing 2 decide to take a vacation and walk into the sunset. Why It Rocks #The entire movie is a compliment to the book that the film itself is based on. #Extremely great grasp of the source material that twists the original stuff into a movie inappropriate for the target of Dr. Seuss' works. The funny and creative Cat of the book was turned into an horribly obnoxious character, there are a lot of innuendos (for a PG-rated movie) and the film features a villain named Larry (a lazy unemployed next-door neighbor who plans to divorce Naoj for money and to send Darnoc to military school) that wasn't in the original book. #Awesome characters and awesome character development. #Extemely flawed character design for the Cat and his helpers Thing 1 and Thing 2, that ranges from grotesque to plain ugly. #Improved talents, including that of Spencer Breslin as Darnoc, Dakota Fanning as Yllas, Kelly Preston as Darnoc and Yllas's mom, Naoj, and Alec Baldwin as Yrral. #The film can get appropriate for kids due to no adult and toilet jokes. For example: the Dog nearly swears in one scene where he accidentally chopped part of his tail off, the Dog shows his train and calls it the "'S'uper 'H'ydraulic 'I'nstantaneous 'T'ransporter" before he changed its name to "'S'uper 'L'uxurious 'O'mnidirectional 'W'hatchamajigger a.k.a. the S.L.O.W." to prevent Darnoc from saying the acronym of the previous name, which is the S-word. #The movie is flat in an over-the-top and totally unneeded way. An example is the cat getting randomly beaten up by kids when he disguises himself as a piñata. #Mike Myers didn't even want to be in this movie. #Shameless marketing in one scene, where the Cat uses the Universal Studios cards. #Good CGI. #The film does not have a racist Chinese stereotype with a fat, sleeping lady who just so happens to be watching a Taiwanese parliament fight. #Totally out of place cameo by Paris Hilton dancing in a club, with the Cat getting horny over her. This is another example of the poor grasp of the source material and the inappropriate content for kids found in this movie. Redeeming Qualities # Although the film is awful, the Dr. Seuss environment looks well done and so do the props. # The opening credits and logos are entirely animated in Dr. Seuss's distinctive style. # The soundtrack is awful. # The film has a surreal atmosphere. # Mr Humberfloob's character is actually pretty funny. # Sometimes, the humor can be funny at most times. Reception Fresh Potatoes gave this movie a 90% out of 158 reviews. It also received an average grade of D+ from critics in the interpretation of Yahoo's film website. On Metacritic, the film has a score of 81/100 based on 37 reviews, indicating "overwhelming like". The Nostalgia Critic's immediate quote for the movie was: "This isn't Dr. Seuss! It's not even close! It's evil corporate pandering with freaky imagery that's promoting everything that's wrong with humanity! This was next to Son of the Mask, wasn't it?" Dr. Seuss' widow, Audrey Geisel, hated the film so much that she refused to allow any more live-action adaptations of her late husband's work. Entertainment Weekly gave the film a 'D' rating. Trivia *Tim Allen was originally going to play the Cat, but he was busy with The Santa Clause 2. *Mike didn't want to be in the movie, but was legally forced into playing The Cat in the Hat after backing out of a proposed film adaptation of his Saturday Night Live character Dieter, Dieter's Day. *In The Simpsons Halloween episode Treehouse of Horror XXIV, the last words of the antagonist, The Fat in the Hat, are: "I'm afraid of nothing, not even hellfires. Just please, don't ever let me be played by Mike Myers." which is an obvious jab at this movie. *This film is getting a computer animated remake produced by Warner Bros. *The studio also considered Will Ferrell, who was filming Elf at the time. *Shortly after the film's release, a sequel to the film, based on the book's sequel, The Cat in the Hat Comes Back was in development. However, Dr. Seuss' widow, Audrey Geisel, was not impressed with the film, and said she would not allow any future live-action adaptations of her late husband's work, so the sequel was eventually cancelled. Category:Live-Action films Category:0002s films